The Navy in November started initial testing of the Long Range Anti Ship Missile (LRASM) aboard its F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.

The initial airworthiness testing was conducted with LRASM mass-simulator vehicle at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md., said Lockheed Martin [LMT], which manufactures LRASM.

Before the military conducts flight tests with an actual missile, it attaches a simulator vehicle with the same weight and size to evaluate whether carrying the missile would place too much strain on the aircraft. The Navy plans to run additional rounds of tests to evaluate how the missile impacts noise and vibration on the aircraft, Lockheed Martin said.

Four of the six planned mass simulated vehicle tests have been completed so far, said Mike Fleming, LRASM director at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control.

“The LRASM airworthiness flights on the Super Hornet put us one step closer to fielding this urgently needed capability for our warfighters,” Fleming said in a news release. “The flight data acquired validates the LRASM system design and clears the way for the test program to continue.”

LRASM is a precision-guided, anti-ship standoff missile the Navy designed to find and strike targets without having to rely on data links, GPS coordinates or other platforms that provide targeting information.

“LRASM testing will continue in 2016 with a fully instrumented measurement vehicle and sensor suite captive carry flights to prove out flight characteristics and maturity of the subsystems,” Fleming said in an emailed statement to Defense Daily. The instrumented measurement vehicle, which is not a functional weapon, will allow the Navy test the functions of components and systems inside LRASM.

The program is on track for first LRASM launch from a Super Hornet after the aircraft integration is complete, he added. Early operational capability is anticipated in 2018 for the B-1B and in 2019 for the F/A-18E/F.

The LRASM program was originated by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) before becoming a joint program with the Navy and Air Force. So far the program has conducted three flight tests of LRASM on the Air Force’s B-1B bomber. LRASM’s design is based on Lockheed Martin’s Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range (JASSM-ER), which allows the military to save money through common parts and assembly processes, Lockheed said.